Maggie Anton is a Talmud scholar and award-winning author of historical fiction trilogy Rashi's Daughters and new series Rav Hisda's Daughter. Her latest novel Enchantress focuses on the rabbis and sorceresses who populate the Talmud and the surprising importance of Jewish magic in 4th-century Babylonia. 

The first volume, Apprentice, was a National Jewish Book Award finalist. A Los Angeles native, Maggie worked for 33 years as a clinical chemist for Kaiser Permanente before becoming an author. Her most recent effort is the Ben Franklin Award winner for Religion, Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say about You-Know-What, a look at our Sages's views on sexuality.

 

TALMUD AFTER DARK:
A distinctive feature of Talmud is that our Sages debated all sorts of subjects in great detail. So it should come as no surprise that they also discussed every aspect of sexual relations-how, when, where, with whom-often in startlingly explicit fashion. Author Maggie Anton reveals how the research behind her Rashi's Daughters historical novels, which take place in 11th century France in the household of the great Talmud scholar, led her to study what the first rabbis had to say about sex. Surprised and impressed at how Jewish tradition is progressive in many respects-and more bawdy, than one might think, she decided to share the best of what she'd learned in her newest book, Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say about You-Know-What.

Hosted by 
Women of Oak Park Temple

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